A Very Busy Weekend, and a Long Blog to Describe It

Last weekend ended up being very busy!  After a trip to the beach planned for Friday was cancelled because of a bus strike, friends and I took advantage of the day to get to know Granada better.  We started the morning with a trip to the Arab baths.  I had already been with my art history class, so I was able to act as tour guide, which was fun.  The Arab Baths are located at the bottom of the Albaicin, next to one of the two rivers in Granada.  It was built in this location because when the Moors were here, the mosque was also located in this area.  The baths were used for total ablutions before going to mosque.  Now there are two sets of Arab baths, one functioning, and the ruins of the original baths.  They are not big or especially impressive, and if you are walking down the street you could easily miss them because there is no sign or indication that they are there.  Although looking for them may be frustrating, once you find them it is very interesting. 

The baths are free to get into, making it one of my favorite things here.  All you have to do when you go in is tell the employee where you are from, for statistical purposes.  You enter in the patio, which has a small pool of water in the center.  The pool currently has four or five giant goldfish swimming around it.  The first indoor room you walk into is where the people would change out of their clothes, and receive a towel from the servant.  Then they pass through to the cold room, where they would scrub themselves.  The next room is the temperate room, then the hot room, where the baths were located.  The hot room also had a fire burning.  There was a passage that ran under the floors of each room and the heat would pass through it.  In the ceilings there are cutouts that could be opened or closed, and between the heating system and the cutouts the temperatures were controlled. 

After our tour of the Arab baths, we headed to the Cathedral in the city center.  It was enormous! There were many small chapels inside.  There were also two very impressive pipe organs.  The Cathedral is hard to describe, and I don’t know much of the history of it, so I can’t write too much about it.  My favorite part was the “candles” you could light in prayer for somebody.  They were actually just the fake candles, with light bulbs, enclosed in glass cases.  I thought they were very amusing.  After the cathedral we looked at a couple produce stands, and stands that sold dried fruit and tea.  We actually came across many of them as we walked through plazas and a few of the narrow streets.  It ended up being a fun day even though it was not what we were originally planning on doing. 

Saturday was even busier than the day before.  We caught an early bus to Cordoba for a day trip in what was the capital of the Caliphate during the Moorish rule.  After a three hour ride, we got into to Cordoba and headed straight to the mosque/cathedral.  The mosque was something else I had learned about in my art history class, so it was fun to get to see it in person.  Abd Al-Rahman had the mosque built during his rule in the eighth century, and hired the architects from Damascus.  Mosques are supposed to face towards Mecca, but since the architects were not from Spain, they built it oriented in the wrong direction.

 You enter into the Patio, which could pass for a small park.  In the park is a fountain that was used for ablutions (like the baths, but not as extensive).   The interior of the mosque is full of arches and columns.  The head of the columns are all different patterns and techniques, because they were taken from the architecture that was already present in many cities the Moors conquered.  The mosque is an extremely interesting building, but I won’t bore you with all the facts.  Inside the mosque, you can also find a cathedral.  The cathedral was built in the center of the mosque, after the catholic kings re-conquered Al-Andulus.  It was very interesting to look at the Christian architecture side by side with the Arabic architecture.  I liked the architecture of the mosque much better.  It is much simpler than that of the cathedral, which makes it much more appealing.   

After the mosque, we went to the old Jewish quarter of Cordoba.  The Jewish people played a very active role in Spanish history, until they were expelled by the Catholic kings in 1492.  This section of town is where you will find one of three synagogues in Spain.  The other two are located in Toledo.  We accidently snuck into the synagogue with a tour group, and it was very pretty.  It’s very, very small, but the decoration is very pretty, and there is a patio at the entrance with flower pots and plants growing.  After looking at the synagogue, we walked through the town.  The buildings are all white washed and there are many flowers in the windows, and courtyards also filled with flowers.  The roads are all cobblestone, and I wasn’t wearing very sensible shoes that day.  One of my sandals ended up breaking, and I had to buy a pair of weird looking shoes.  My friends said I couldn’t walk around barefoot.    

Our last stop for the day was actually about 10 km outside of the city.  Built in the mountains was a city, Medina Al-zahra, that served as the residential and official location for the Caliphate.  Only a fraction of the city has been excavated, but it was very big.  I can only imagine what it looked like complete, and not in ruins.  Before you go into the ruins there is a great museum.  It was very interesting, and had the history of the city, and information about its architecture.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Once I finished reading all the signs, we headed into the ruins.  It was fascinating.  You can just walk through them.  They did have one section blocked off for refurbishing, which was a bit disappointing.  It was the “throne room”, so I am sure it would have been great to see.  However, the rest of the city was impressive enough.  The architecture remaining is gorgeous.  I tried my hardest to picture the city full of people, and not in ruins but it was difficult.  Despite its grandeur and the amount of work that was put into it, the city was actually only functioning for a little over seventy years.  War ended the Caliphate, and the capital was moved elsewhere.  At first the city was looted, but eventually it was completely forgotten about. 

After Medina Al-zahra, we went back to the bus station and caught the bus back to Granada.  Sunday we met up again and went to a huge open air market.  There were stands selling clothes, jewelry, shoes, and produce.  Basically, everything you could think of you could probably find at this market.  The vendors were all screaming about their bargains over everything, and it was filled with people.  It was so fun.  I bought half a kilo of strawberries, and ate them all when I got back to the apartment.  After lunch we went and walked around the Albaicin and enjoyed the weather and people watching.  The whole weekend was great, and filled with both ancient and modern culture.  I don’t know if this weekend is going to be quite as busy.  The weather is starting to warm up a lot here, and the city is starting to fill with tourists.  There are more and more people out and about, and it is fun to just stay in town and enjoy the hustle and bustle of spring.